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After a few setbacks and delays (damn you, CTIA), the BlackBerry Cool Podcast is back! It’s also our 40th podcast, which is some sort of milestone, I guess, and a good place to implement changes. We’ve fiddled with the format a little, added some music and a new weekly podcast guest: Fake Ted Rogers. The BlackBerry Cool Podcast will also now be released on Mondays (apologies to all those who enjoy listening to podcasts while raking leaves on the weekend).

This week’s podcast is a bit of a catchup, as we discuss the major news of the past month: the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 and BlackBerry Storm, and Rogers new BES/BIS plans and BlackBerry Bold price drop. Coincidentally, we also discuss why RIM will never make a BlackBerry app store. Whoops. In fairness, the BlackBerry Application Center is the perfect compromise between what we said RIM needs and what they would never do, so give us partial credit. We also attempted to talk about RIM’s stock and the economy, but cut it because we had nothing significant to contribute on either subject.

Downloading/streaming options for the BlackBerry Cool Podcast can be found after the jump, as well as links to all the relevant news stories. Enjoy!

Boy has it been a trying time for the BlackBerry Nation. The economy is in the tank, the BlackBerry Bold has yet to arrive on AT&T and one of our most intensely debated Weekly Contests came when we asked if RIM was going to be okay. We need some fun!

Whatever the reason, post your most inspiring argument in the comments section about how you could make BlackBerrys even better with just a few minor tweaks. Maybe the smartphone gods will answer our prayers!

The two posters that come up with the best BlackBerry fix will win a FREE ONE YEAR SUBSCRIPTION TO WORLDMATE LIVE‘S GOLD SERVICE!

The lovely Sandy over at WorldMate reminded me yesterday of some news sitting in my inbox that you should all know about. WorldMate Live has just celebrated its one year anniversary and is in the mood for celebrating! If you didn’t know, WorldMate Live is an application that specializes in mobile travel services for the frequent flyer and road warrior, providing them with crucial and timely information. The super fun video above (probably one of the most endearing BlackBerry product demos I’ve ever seen) shows why this type of information can be so important.

In addition to a new look and feel, the one year anniversary of WorldMate Live also brings some new feature upgrades. Both the Web and mobile versions have seen a functionality bump, including a new home screen featuring a contextual dashboard based on users’ travel behavior, and a “carousel” display and navigation of all WorldMate Live’s services (you can see a full list of improvements as well as some screenshots after the jump).

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL! WorldMate is also offering their Gold Service at a 25% discount for a limited time! Simply head to https://www.worldmatelive.com/ and use the promo code: specialwml. Oh, and make sure to tell them BlackBerry Cool sent you.

Version 2.0.13 of WorldMate Live has been released, now letting you book hotels right from your BlackBerry. If you haven’t tried it, WorldMate Live is a great travel app that helps you sort out all of your arrangements, such as flights, accommodation, rentals, maps, weather, and itineraries all under one roof. A free version is available, but for the real sweet stuff, you’ll want to look into their Gold subscription service, which unlocks flight status-checking, travel directory, and flight alerts. This new hotel-booking feature sounds great, but it would be really nice if they could plug into Google’s recent transit search so you could figure out bus times in foreign cities. The last update included a feature which let you know if your plans overlapped with any contacts, which was certainly a cool change of pace. If you’re interested in giving the free version of WorldMate Live a shot, head on over to WorldMateLive.com.

Yeah, you’d think a week would be good enough to catch up on WES stuff, but that’s clearly not the case. WorldMate Live announced a new “Connections” feature to their great BlackBerry travel app, allowing you to easily hook up with people that have overlapping travel plans. After requesting a connection with someone else, WorldMate Live will keep an eye on both of your accounts, and whenever it looks like you’ll both be heading to the same destination, you’ll get a notification. This is a really cool and easy way to keep in touch with business contacts who are on the move just as much as you are. On top of that, the WML handheld client also added calendar integration, so all of your itinerary information get shunted to your BlackBerry’s default calendar app. Oh, they also announced integration with Telmap’s mapping systems, so you can get GPS directions to all the destinations listed in your itinerary. If you’re interested in giving it a shot, there’s a free version available, but to get the good stuff, you’ll have to sign up for Gold service.

We talked last month about some of the more idyllic travel destinations, and how BlackBerry helped you out in those exotic locales, but, as we’ve seen, sometimes things don’t go quite as planned. Everyone’s missed a flight, or at least came close to it, or botched hotel reservations, or got completely lost in a foreign city. Well, let’s hear your worst travel story, and how your BlackBerry helped (or ruined) everything. I always think of Max the Road Warrior when it comes to missing flights, and accordingly, we’re going to give away 6 months of WorldMate Live Gold for the best travel horror story, especially if it involves a plane full of zombies.